Researching John Kent

He was elected to the first House of Assembly in 1832 as a Liberal. Kent was a champion of Catholic rights on an island that was then deeply divided along religious lines, which his actions directly exacerbated. He was described in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography (DCB) as a demagogue who "enjoyed the storm and rode it to his own advantage", a style of politicking later followed in similar fashion by, among others, Edward Murphy Jr. (of Troy, New York) and Richard J. Daley (of Chicago). The DCB states, "Kent's electioneering was a compound of his own strident vitality, intimidation, and clerical influence. Newfoundland in 1832 had virtually universal suffrage under a household franchise, and it was not difficult to secure election by turbulent, and very effective means. Kent was of the school of Reformers who relished quarrels with authority."

He worked for the reform movement along with his uncle, Philip Morris, and William Carson, which successfully persuaded the British Colonial Office to institute responsible government in Newfoundland. Kent became Colonial Secretary under Philip Francis Little.

From 1848-55 he was Speaker of the Newfoundland House of Assembly. He became Premier after Little resigned in 1858. He won the election of 1859 but his government was engulfed by crisis in 1861 when it tried to lower the salary of government officials, including judges who sued the government.

In the legislature, Kent accused Governor Sir Alexander Bannerman and the opposition Conservatives of conspiring with the judges against the government. Bannerman, who despised Kent's "dictatorial methods and disliked his administration", responded by dismissing Kent's government in March 1861, which Kent described as a "gross act of treachery".

The Liberals defeated the Conservative government in a Motion of No Confidence. The Conservatives narrowly defeated Kent's Liberals in a sometimes violent election campaign fought along sectarian lines with Catholics largely voting Liberal and Protestants largely voting Conservative. Riots erupted in the heavily Catholic Harbour Grace area when Bannerman cancelled voting there. Later that same year, 1861, Hugh Hoyles was appointed by Bannerman as Conservative Premier of the new government.

He was born the son of a railway official in Hertfordshire and educated at Minchenden Grammar School and University College, London, where he was awarded a BA in 1949 and a PhD in 1951. After two years National Service he was appointed Assistant Keeper in the British Museum’s Department of Coins and Medals.

There his main interest was the coins of the late Roman period, contributing to the reference book on Late Roman Bronze Coinage which was published in 1960. Other work covered the reclassification of imitative early medieval coins of the 5th century, assisting on the dating of the Sutton Hoo burial ship and the use of gold coinage in the late Roman Empire. However his major published works were Volume VIII and X in the Roman Imperial Coinage series. Volume VIII, published in 1981, covered the period from the death of the Emperor Constantine in AD 337 to the accession of Valentinian in AD 364. Volume X, published in 1994, covered the period from the division of the Roman Empire in AD 395 to the accession of Anastasius in AD 491. He also completed two volumes on the Continental Celtic Coins in the British Museum and other collections left incomplete by the death of previous keeper Derek Allen, which were published in 1987 and 1990.

Between 1960 and 1967, Kent directed excavations at South Mimms Castle in Middlesex. The results were published in 2013, after Kent's death; the book was based on drafts prepared by Kent and Anthony Streeten and updated by Derek Renn.

In 1974 he was promoted Deputy Keeper, and in 1983 Keeper, of the British Museum's coin and medal collection, a post he held until his retirement in 1990. A commemorative medal was struck to mark his retirement.

He died in 2000. He had married Patricia Bunford in 1961 and had a son and a daughter.